All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Director Dr Randeep Guleria on Saturday said that India might have to adopt a booster dose with second-generation Covid-19 vaccines as the Delta variant of the coronavirus has swept across the world and driven up infections in several countries.
He further said Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin trials for children are presently underway and the results are expected to be released by September.
“It seems that we probably need the booster dose of vaccines as with the passage of time the immunity tends to fall,” Dr Guleria said. “There is waning immunity. We would like to have a booster dose that will cover for various emerging variants,” Dr Guleria said adding that the booster dose will be a second-generation vaccine.
“We will have second-generation vaccines which would be better in terms of the immunity they give, covering of the new variants and a having a better overall efficacy,” Dr Guleria said.
On Covaxin trials on children, he said: “The Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin trials should be over by August or September, and by that time we should get an approval. Pfizer vaccine has been already approved by the FDA (US regulator - Food and Drug Administration). Hopefully, by September, we should start vaccinating children, and that will be a big boost as far as breaking the chain of transmission is concerned.”
Dr Guleria’s statement comes as the second dose of Covaxin is likely to be administered to children aged 2-6 years in trials next week. “We need to get our own vaccines too - that’s why both Bharat Biotech and Zydus are important. Getting the Pfizer vaccine will also be helpful, as there is enough data to suggest it’s safe... but we can’t be sure if we will get required numbers. We will hopefully have more than one vaccine for children by September,” he said. The second dose of Covaxin has already been given to children between the ages of 6-12 years at the Delhi AIIMS. Besides Covaxin, the trials for Zydus Cadila’s vaccine for children are also currently underway in the country.
On June 7, Delhi AIIMS started screening children between the age of 2 to 17 for trials of Covid-19 vaccine. On May 12, the DCGI granted permission to Bharat Biotech to carry out phase 2, phase 3 trials of Covaxin on children as young as two.